The child of alcoholic parents, whose childhood was deeply insecure, becomes the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans.

An unlikely and wonderful true fairy tale.

* * *

And that is why we love fairy tales. Because, not infrequently, not infrequently, our lives and the lives of those we love resemble them. Because a kind author is crafting the story of our lives, “shaping our ends for good, rough hew them how we will.” Because Christianity is a true fairy tale, as Tolkein famously told C. S. Lewis, contributing to his conversion.

For the dark areas of one’s life to turn to the gold of fairy tales is an entirely reasonable expectation when we invite Jesus Christ to control these stuttering areas, ask for his instructions, and then do whatever he tells us.

A challenging marriage, a stalled career, a faltering business, ravaged health, impossible dreams–in the midst of all of these, it is completely rational to have great hope because of the power of God. Each of these can completely turn around once we invite Jesus to be the Lord of that area, and of our lives. He will suggest revisions to the current chapter, and inspire drafts of the next ones. The business, health and career may well turn around and ascend under the new divine management. Or they may crash… and a golden, unexpected next chapter may arise phoenix-like from the ashes.

* * *

Justin Welby changed so utterly that Moore meeting him 40 years later was amazed. Of course, The Telegraph recently revealed that Welby’s biological father was Anthony Montague Browne, Churchill’s private secretary, who later worked for the Queen, and from whom he evidently received a genetic inheritance of solidity, good judgement and sound nerves. Inherited brain chemistry makes a psychopath or sociopath behave like one; but it can also be a beneficent inheritance, as it was for Welby.

But other factors contributed to the change in Welby that so astonished Moore…the Gospel, the Holy Spirit, dynamic teaching, his own disciplined follow-through, and, crucially, a circle of friends: Nicky Gumbel and the Eton-Oxbridge-Holy Trinity Brompton nexus that has a huge, hidden influence on the Church of England today. (Many influential figures such as Nicky Gumbel, John Stott, David Watson, Michael Green and Welby were converted or discipled by a man called E. J. H. Nash or Bash).

Serendipity or the grace of god… That is how Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled explains people who have fruitful and creative lives despite distressing childhoods. In Welby’s case, it was both.

This differs from person to person. For some it’s an inheritance of this world, the sort that’s visible, valued and coveted–and for some it’s an inheritance “out of this world.”

Here are some blessings that are part of the inheritance of every children of God:

A friend, Jesus our brother, always walking beside us.

Access to Christ himself, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Guidance from Christ. Access to his wisdom when it comes to solving the problems of our life….whether mundane–how to get the money we need for the fullest, richest, most creative life–or spiritual (stuff which is the essence of life!)

The knowledge of the presence of God beside us, and the Holy Spirit within us.

Peace.

Protection from evil.

The promise of wisdom.

Happiness.

Serendipity; a connection-making God.

The forgiveness of our sins: wow!!

Eternal life.

* * *

Bid my brother divide the inheritance with me. The anguished cry of the man in the crowd echoes through the centuries. Inheritances, conniving to get them, families divided by the unfair division of them are a major theme of fiction, Victorian fiction, in particular—and of real life too!!

But the spiritual inheritance of the children of God far trumps any worldly inheritance. Read the list again! Who would jeopardise such blessings? And this inheritance that is available to all who would claim it.

“I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics,” Justin Welby said, reflecting on his “story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives…a testimony to the grace and power of Christ to liberate and redeem us, grace and power which is offered to every human being.”

And that is our truest inheritance as Christians, the invitation to live in a true fairy tale of a deep change in our hearts and characters; answered prayer; the surprising, the exciting, the miraculous. A fairy tale with roles in it for anyone who would come play.

I was mentored in my thirties by a friend who genuinely knew God, but was nevertheless conservative and sexist, and made me feel guilty about my call to write which he saw as “dabbling.” He felt I should throw myself into housekeeping and childrearing, and would thereby find God at the bottom of the laundry basket.

So I felt guilty and conflicted about my desire for success in whatever I undertook.

* * *

Both of my daughters are successful in what they do; one of them, in particular, is successful in everything she throws her heart into…

I’ve been meditating on success…

I increasingly want to view things the way that Jesus does. “So, Lord, what do you think about success?” I ask.

* * *

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey God. Then you will be successful in everything you do,” the Lord tells Joshua (Joshua 1:7).

Success is God’s expectation for Joshua. And success is God’s blessing on Joshua.

For God is our father. No loving parent would wish to see their child fail, expect when failing is the only way to learn. I remember Irene walking her first steps with a huge grin on her face, her fat little legs collapsing under her plump baby body, and then she lifted herself up, and continued, still with that fat grin on her face. Not to allow her to fall would be keeping her weak.

So God may allow failures…to teach us our need for him, or to redirect us when we have chosen the wrong path. He might permit physical and mental burnouts to teach us to intersperse mental and physical activity so that both mind and body thrive, and we achieve more in the long run.

In general, however, I believe success is God’s will for his children. For instance, I don’t believe God intends us to start a business and fail. I dissolved the first business I ran soon after my second business went into good profit, because it was unsustainably intensive and lacked long-term potential. It was, in other words, a failure! But the things I learnt from it, and the business books I read while running it, helped me run my second business successfully, while having time to taste the joy of life. So it was both a failure, and a self-taught MBA in the school of experience. These failures God permits; they are slip roads onto the highway of our calling, as a writer might experiment with poetry, fiction, essay and drama before settling on creative nonfiction which uses all these genres.

* * *

In J.R.R. Tolkein’s story “Leaf by Niggle,” Niggle, all his life, tries to complete a huge, beautiful painting, always thwarted by those who commandeer his time, and exploit him for their own ends. He dies with his giant painting unfinished, though one leaf was perfection….

Well, when Niggle gets to heaven, he sees the landscape and forest that he had been trying to paint all his life: complete and perfect. Had be been attempting to recreate what existed in God’s Own Country, or had God, just for the fun of it, created what Niggle had struggled to?

Wonderstuck, “Niggle said, “ ‘It’s a gift.’ He was referring to his art, and also to the result, but he was using the word quite literally.”

Art is a gift of God primarily to the artist herself.

* * *

I believe God intends all his children to be successful–though not all to be equally successful. There are tens of thousands of Christian bloggers, but only a dozen or so who have tens of thousands of readers. Are the rest failures then?

The art we produce, the books, the blogs, the poems, may reach millions, or may only reach thousands, hundreds, dozens, or even fewer… In his mysterious purposes before the beginning of time, God chooses the precise places where people live, the gifts he gives them, and their circle of influence.

However, whether its reach is massive or limited, creativity is the gift of God to us, given for our joy, our pleasure, our delight, our growth, and even our sanctification. Creativity, art, is a gift to be enjoyed for its own sake, for the pleasure of making beautiful things, even while we pray that God may use our creativity to bless many.

Success then is taking the talents we have been given by a God who loves us–one talent, five or ten, and investing them fruitfully.

Success lies in running well in our own lane, enjoying the work of our hands, not worrying about people in more glittering and influential lanes, accepting that, for now, God has given them a different story, a larger lane, and perhaps may give us a larger lane one day, or perhaps not–but either way, the love of God is sufficient to fill our hearts with joy.

* * *

Want a shortcut to success?

I was reading about Rev. E. J. H. Nash, who converted many key players in today’s Anglican Church, including Justin Welby, John Stott, Nicky Gumbel, Michael Green, and David Watson. His goal was to reach England for Christ by evangelizing “the best boys from the best schools.”

When Nash surrendered his life to Christ, he mentally “handed over to him the keys of every room in the house of his life.”

What Jesus put in each room, what he took out, and how he rearranged things was now His responsibility. And Christ gave Nash, nicknamed Bash, a disproportionate influence on the course of Christianity in this nation.

C. S. Lewis needed to surrender to “the great Angler,” ‘the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England,” to have his imagination baptized, and to be liberated into the freedom, the creativity, the whimsical, playful, and magical combining of all the worlds he delighted in that we see in the Narnia books.

Inviting Christ into every room of your life, and especially into the rooms of your imagination, your creativity, and your work, will yield surprising results.

I must add though that Jesus, the Lion of God, is not a tame lion. He may remove some things, replace them with others, may redirect you to a quieter room for a season–and this season could be a very long one. Or he may almost instantly unleash a flood of words, ideas, connections, and inspiration.

I believe surrender is always accompanied by creativity. Surrender of ourselves to Jesus is a divine exchange, an exchange of our limitedness for his unlimitedness, our smallness for his hugeness, and our puny ideas for his magnificent ideas.

(When I invited Christ anew into every room of the house of my life, I was surprised by a business idea which filled us with purpose and joy, excitement and hope, an idea I could instinctively and immediately tell would work, even on the mundane level that businesses must work, i.e. providing a golden financial return for the investment of time and talent–but which, God willing, will also bless many people.)

* * *

The quest for success in our endeavours becomes light and happy when we love something or someone more than success, when something or someone is more important than success. For me at present, that Someone is Christ.

* * *

I like Samuel’s prophecy over Saul, “The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you; and you will be changed into a different person. Then do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you,” 1 Samuel 10 6-7.